When Fi Lawson arrives home to find strangers moving into her house, she is plunged into terror and confusion. Fi insists her home isn't for sale how can this other family think the house is theirs? Discovering that her husband, Bram, has disappeared, Fi's panic rises as she realizes the secrets and lies have only just begun.

It is 1944 and thirteen year-old Tolly Oldknow is sent to spend Christmas with his grandmother, whilst his mother searches for news of his father in wartime London. In the old house, he becomes a witness to events during the Napoleonic wars and finds himself slowly drawn into participating in the drama. Invisible to most people in the past, he begins to unravel the mystery which has bewildered his family for two centuries. The solution to the puzzle...